Big Data - The Perfect Aid for Mobile App Development

Smartphones and smart-devices have simplified our daily tasks manifolds. They have become an indispensable part of our lives. Today, we just cannot imagine a single day without these devices. We no longer need to head out for purchasing things or for searching a conveyance, we have apps that can help us with most of the imaginable things. We can book our favorite movies or meals at our favorite restaurants with just a few taps on our mobiles.

Today, the number of smartphone users around the world is nearly 4.77 billion, a figure that shows the market for mobile apps is only splurging right now. Almost every major activity can be accomplished via mobile and mobile apps. So, businesses and organizations can no longer afford to ignore the relevance of mobiles when it comes to expanding their businesses. The higher the number of mobile users, the higher is the amount of data collected every minute. Estimates suggest that by 2020, we will have nearly 44 trillion gigabytes of data at our disposal, with over 10 billion megabytes of data being produced per second!

If you are new to the concept of Big Data, there are numerous Big Data courses to increase your knowledge on the subject!

The fundamental question that arises is: How do you leverage and use such vast amount of data to develop good mobile apps providing value-added services?

The answer is Big Data. It is clearly visible that the increased engagement and interactions with mobile applications are giving rise to such overwhelming amounts of data. This data holds tremendous potential to unravel hidden patterns in it with Big Data analytics. So, the relationship between mobile apps and Big Data is complementary - mobile apps generate massive amounts of data, and Big Data analytics provide powerful insights about the data that mobile app developers can use to improve their apps.

How can Big Data enhance mobile app development and marketing?

Due to the ever-increasing number of mobile users, the mobile app market is expected to reach $189 billion by 2020. Hence, a significant share of the future of digital technology depends on developing certified and stable mobile apps. Here's how Big Data can help transform mobile applications for the better!

Enhance user experience

Analyzing the user experience is crucial for app development. The real-time data generated through interaction with mobile apps and analyzing the user behavior can provide a distinct picture of what your potential customers are looking for in your app. In other words, Big Data analytics can offer a comprehensive overview of the user behavior and help you identify the points you need to focus on.

Big Data analytics and ML algorithms help you to understand your target audience. To ensure that your app is successful, you first need to know the pain points of your target audience. For instance, Amazon has been leveraging the power of Big Data to enhance the overall customer experience. Through predictive analytics, Amazon curates an exclusive list of recommendations based on your previous searches or purchases. Apart from this, Amazon uses Big Data analytics to find out when there is maximum traffic on their site, what are the products highly demanded by users, etc.

Analyzing such data in real-time will allow app developers to continually enhance apps and add value to a diverse range of apps spanning across various industries like healthcare, finance, enterprise, shopping, gaming, education, and much more.

Expand the arena of mobile marketing

When it comes to mobile marketing, the implications of Big Data are enormous. According to Forbes, in businesses, customer analytics grabs the highest share with 48% use of Big Data cases, followed by operational analytics with 21% share, and the remaining 22% occupied by fraud control and compliance (12%) and R&D (10%). Big Data provides a competitive edge to organizations. With predictive analytics, they can identify the market segments with the most potential and the customer segments they should target and build their digital mobile marketing strategy accordingly.

Push your boundaries - go international

For app developers seeking to target the global audience, Big Data is an excellent tool. To ensure that your mobile app offers unique solutions, you need to have a good knowledge of how consumers around the world are interacting and behaving with your app. And how will you gain such insight? With Big Data, of course. Big Data analytics will give you access to filtered consumer data categorized by location, age and gender demographic so that you can customize your app for particular user segments across the globe. This will further allow you to scale up your revenue by determining what type of messages, notifications, offers, and emails you need to forward to your customer segments to keep them engaged and loyal to your app.

Target has set a great example of using Big Data analytics to boost the sales of its pregnant women's product range.

Since mobile applications are essentially B2B players, they need to present a more refined, structured, and target specific utility case in front of their potential customers. Big Data analytics is an excellent tool to customize and curate mobile apps according to the consumer segment they cater to. Thus, the future of mobile applications is inevitably correlated to Big Data.

This is a guest post by Vivek Kumar. Vivek is the President of Consumer Revenue at UpGrad, an online education platform providing industry oriented programs in collaboration with world-class faculty co-founded by Mr.Ronnie Screwvala and 3 IIT Delhi Alumni. He holds an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad with experience in diversified industries like Consumer goods, Media, Technology Products and Education Services.